Bair hit her with his rifle.

Eien near pissed his pants in terror. Bair turned his gun and hit her with the butt of the rifle in the shoulder as she kept her claws at the throat of the dead man. She whipped her head to him, eyes still dead as sin.

Eien shivered as she stood up slowly, looking at Bair.

Bair was angry.

“Fucking hell, Aino, you know you were supposed to leave a couple to interrogate. Not kill the whole lot of them.” Bair kicked one of the chairs in the room, sending it into the wall.

“Fuck!”

Eien waited for instructions, avoiding looking at the mutilated bodies in her wake, avoiding looking at Bair in a clear rage. He focused on the crack in the wall, one that stretched from ceiling to floor, a fissure that would open up and swallow everyone whole.

After a moment of silence, Bair touched his earbud.

“Yo, Jar, get Snatch and Ling to empty out the bodies. Check vitals. Find someone alive.” Bair looked at Aino, his eyes blazing with barely contained frustration. Aino did not move; her expression was empty and distant.

Eien felt the string between them pull tauter and tauter. He gripped his gun tightly, anticipating an outburst. Then Aino spoke.

“I’ll take my leave now. Eien, with me.” Bair relaxed a bit.

“Eien, your job is to stick with her. I gotta…clean up this mess,” Bair said, a bitter edge to his voice.

“Y-yes, sir, ma’am,” Eien eked out.

Aino turned stiffly and walked out the door. Eien followed, a few steps behind, avoiding looking back at Bair’s scowling face.

Aino didn’t watch where she stepped. Bones crunched under her boots. She tracked blood down the stairs, her boot prints like stamps upon a letter of death. Her eyes did not avert either way, but she kept focused on her exit, as if the massacre she caused was nothing noteworthy.

Eien felt cold. In the sun, he had been hot, but now in the building, cold air hit his cheeks.

She broke out into the street and stood facing the building with her hands clasped behind her back. Eien stood next to her, though not nearly as close as he did with Bair.

He watched as some extra guards scrambled to help the team pull bodies from the building. They were loaded onto trucks and covered with sheets. Another team came by in a truck, hauling out buckets and unreeling hoses from tankers full of cleaners and water.

Aino was still as they watched the aftermath. Eien looked at her.

“S-so….why…why me?” he asked, feeling nearly sick at talking to her at all.

He had watched her kill someone before. He had sparred and trained with her. She picked him for her team. If she wanted to kill him, he would be dead. And there would be no repercussions for her. She had picked him for some unknown reason, so she must have liked him at some level. But she also had to know that he was shit compared to everyone else.

Aino turned her head to him and silently watched him stare back at her.

It was too uncomfortable to stay this way, and he turned his eyes away, shaking.

Instead of speaking, Aino pointed to the building. Then she pointed to her ear.

“There are a lot of rats that need to be killed,” she replied, her voice even and monotone. She turned to watch the building again.

Eien swallowed warm spit.

Jar came trotting up to them, his sniper rifle slung over his shoulder. He was their best sharpshooter and was number three on the team, answering mostly to Bair. His hair was shock black, darker than even Eien’s black hair, and he had a tendency to eat whatever and whenever he could. Eien could hear him early in the morning clanging pots and pans, making about a dozen eggs in addition to toast and meat. He was also the biggest hulk on the team, towering over everyone else.

“Commander, we found no one alive. Bair wants to leave and let the cleaners deal with the rest.” Aino stared at him as if she barely registered him, like she was looking beyond him. Jar must have been used to it because all he did was pick at his teeth, looking down at her like he was bored.

“Fine. We will debrief in the conference room at headquarters,” she replied, her voice straight and even, almost monotonous, but she let her pitch fall almost robotically.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, and he briskly turned, trotting away.

She turned to Eien.

“You’re with me.” He took a last glance at the workers hosing out the insides of the building. Then he followed her.

And, damn, he was still following her.

He focused on walking after her through the tall grasses.

“Are we out of danger yet? The Antmen still following?” he asked.

“There’s something far from here,” she said.

“What is it?” he asked. She did not respond. She did not know. He sighed, stretching his hands behind his head.

The grass rolled on for miles around them in low hills and sloping overhangs. It reached up to his chest, ticking his exposed skin. He focused on the sky, amazed at how blue it looked out here. In Beldam, it was always gray, maybe a light blue, but this one was a brilliant blue, like…like…

He really had nothing to compare it to. Maybe the bird he had seen a while back by the river?

It was freeing to be here, without anyone, without buildings, without walls. But, he was hungry and thirsty and dirty and tired. His adrenaline had been pumping hard the past few days, and he was still on edge, worried about discovery and inevitable death. Now that they had passed the edge, were they safe? Were they ever going to be safe again?

Probably not.

Because, bugs.

"Fucking, stupid! Argh! Ai! What the fuck are these things?" he grumbled, swatting away bugs as large as his eyeball with his hand. Their big bug eyes were the size of his thumb print, fractalizing his reflection. Yellow wings buzzed loudly in his ears, supporting their large black bodies in the air. His exposed neck, face, and hands were starting to sprout red welts from bites. She turned to face him.

"Biting flies," Aino replied, her face starting to swell from a few dozen bites.

"What the fuck?! You're worse off than me! Can’t you puff them away or something? Use some…what the hell? What are you doing?" Eien cried out.

` She had grabbed one in her hand and was pulling the wings off of the struggling creature, discarding it to the ground. She popped them into her mouth.

“What the fuck?” Eien shouted at her, “Stop eating the damn things. Let’s go!”

He grabbed her arm and started running, pulling her along until she started to drop. He ended up dragging her the last little bit until his vision began to get fuzzy. Fuck. Why wasn’t she fighting it?

He heard something rustling behind him.

He dropped her arm, grabbed his gun, and spun around. The grass rustled a bit, and he saw two small eyes peeking through the grass, reminiscent of the grass giant eyes.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

His shaking subsiding, he lowered his gun as he noticed the little, gloved fingers holding the grasses apart.

"Come on out," he said gruffly, feeling his tongue grow bigger inside his mouth. He kicked Aino, hoping she was not dead. Damn bugs. They were still buzzing around and nipping at them.

Two little eyes turned into a little face, and the gloves hands turned into little arms. It wore a full body covering like a green robe with a hooded mask. He was staring at a child?

It pointed at Aino, "Your wife's gonna die." Eien glanced at her. Her face was deformed, her eyes were swollen shut, and he wasn’t sure if she was breathing.

Wait. Wife?

"Okay…first off, she is..." he trailed off, his tongue was too big in his mouth.

"My mama can help," it said, "Come on."

Eien put away the gun and grabbed Anwen by the collar. He dragged her after the child through the tall grass, focusing on following the increasingly blurry green spot.

His vision got worse, and he could barely see the grass moving in front of him, but he could hear the child calling to him. Ah! His eyes were swelling, too!

"This way! Over here! Watch the hole!"

He stumbled forward suddenly and found himself with a mouth full of dirt. Panicking, he scrambled back to his feet and forced his eyes open with his fingers. Where was Ai? Where was Ai?

Hands pulled his arms away, and he started to struggle against them, but it was starting to get difficult to breathe.

I'm passing out, he thought. Well. Fuck.